Ketogenic Recipes for Medical Therapies

Ketogenic Caramel

To see a video of me making this caramel sauce, please click the link below! Most of my work is now featured on The Charlie Foundation website. I hope the video instructions help clear up any questions!

Update 2/18/19: Welcome to KetoCook! I have been developing ketogenic recipes since 2010 for my daughter who successfully manages Dravet’s Syndrome (epilepsy) with the ketogenic diet. You will find most of the recipes on this site make 1 serving. This is because her version of the ketogenic diet is so strict, nutritional requirements are met to the gram using a software program called the KetoDietCalculator. Please feel free to multiply the recipes to make larger servings. I am also in the process of adding standard measurements to many of the recipes, but this takes time! You can find many more recent keto recipes I have developed at the Charlie Foundation. It has been one of the biggest honors of my life to work with Jim Abrahams and continue the mission of the Charlie Foundation by developing and photographing recipes, writing eBooks and managing their social media outlets. I also consult with Cambrooke Therapeutics on their KetoVie Cafe line of prepared ketogenic foods available by mail. I hope you find this site useful on your keto journey!

Original Recipe Post:

Ketogenic & caramel are not usually two words that go together…EVER! And caramel as a method of serving fat, not sugar??? I’m really not kidding! This is a really good replacement for traditional caramel, with the added benefit of it containing essentially ZERO carbohydrate or protein, it is almost 100% fat. If you are looking for the best tasting keto fat bomb ever, this is it!

This is a “make it and eat it” kind of recipe. It will sit ok at room temperature for a few hours, but will eventually break and separate. If you store it in the fridge, it will harden like butter. You can make candies in silicone molds this way if you wish. You will not be able to re-heat it and return it to a sauce like state after it has hardened. So plan ahead and be ready to cook this on the day you wish to serve it. This would be wonderful drizzled on top of a pumpkin pie or apple crisp…. Hope you enjoy!

Directions

Use a non-stick pan you have. Melt the butter in the pan over LOW heat.

Let the butter cook until it begins to turn golden brown. It is best to not rush this process because once it starts to turn brown it can quickly go too far and taste burnt.

Once the butter has turned light golden brown, remove the pan from the heat and add the cream and sweetener.

Immediately return the pan to the low heat and stir the cream into the butter. The cream will foam and bubble initially but will then stop. Allow the cream to come to a full boil. The cream and the butter may look separated, but keep stirring!

Once the bubbling has slowed and the ingredients are well combined, continue cooking until it has thickened and feels “sticky” (The bubbles will take longer to come to the surface).

This step only took about 1 minute for a batch of 60g cream and 60g butter, and a few seconds for the 12g batch.

Once you remove it from the heat, continue to stir until it begins to cool. If you let it sit while it is hot, the butter and cream will separate. Continue to stir it for a few minutes and it will hold together as a thick sauce. You can pour it into candy molds at this point if you wish.

Scrape the sauce into a cool dish and serve! (Read below for a 4:1 ratio snack example)

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Snack Example – 4:1 Ratio

This is a method that you can incorporate into any meal where you would like to serve caramel. When you are calculating a meal, include butter and cream as your fat. For example, I calculated a 4:1 ratio, 146 calorie snack of apples (no skin), butter and cream.

12g butter

12g 40% heavy cream

25.5g apples with no skin

Follow the process above for cooking the caramel. It will go MUCH FASTER with a small amount like this. The caramel will weigh significantly less than 24 grams (12g butter + 12g cream) after cooking. This is because water content has cooked out of both the butter and cream.

Like this:

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Published by Dawn

In 2007 my life was was changed forever when my daughter, Charlotte received a definitive diagnosis of Dravet’s Syndrome and my infant son, JT, was diagnosed with Hirschsprung’s Disease within the same week. In 2010, Charlotte began treatment with the ketogenic diet and experienced her first seizure free day in over 5 years. Enduring these trials has inspired and humbled me tremendously. I am compelled to reach out to as many families as possible, helping them understand how to incorporate ketogenic cooking into their everyday lives. I am the author of “The Keto Cookbook” and "The Modified Keto Cookbook" as well as the primary ketogenic recipe developer at The Charlie Foundation for Ketogenic Therapies. I am also proud to be a consultant for Cambrooke Therapeutics developing recipes for their Keto Vie Cafe product line. In the years since I began this journey, I have heard from many families whose lives have been saved by the ketogenic diet. I created KetoCook as a resource for “parents helping parents” find ideas and inspiration for ketogenic meals. Happy keto cooking!
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54 comments

I just made the caramel sauce but instead of regular monkfruit sweetener, I added the brown sugar substitute and at the very end I added a bit of unflavored gelatin powder to thicken it like caramel candies. Thank you sooo much for the recipe, it tastes and looks just like regular caramel!

Thanks for the recipe! It’s probably one of the easiest and best tasting things I’ve ever made that was keto friendly. Also one of the prettiest! That gorgeous color browning the butter gives is just scrumptious.

OMG. So, good. Don’t sell yourself short, this is fabulous. Thank you so much! If they’re not getting it brown, then they’re not browning the butter ahead of time. It took more than a minute for mine to get gooey.

Just made this. Next time ill use unsalted butter. Salt intensifies as butter cooks down. Also i think you have to gain experience with this so you can match the color of the browned butter to the taste. I wanted greater carameling and deeper color. Now i know the color ill need next time! Thanks for this recipe! Going to use the left over carmel as a popcorn topping. With the salt, itll be perfect! Will make it specifically for carmel popcorn!

Hi! I made this last night. While mine didn’t have the color yours did, it definitely tasted like caramel. I added a little nutmeg and a just a little fresh lemon juice. It tastes great! I think I will also use it as a condensed milk. Thank you for this. It will come in handy. Also, mine did not separate when it cooled. I did make them into little candies. Thanks again!

I found that jacking up the price after you add the cream is helpful, it thickens the mix without burning and essentially self stirs. make sure to watch it though, you don’t want it to burn. It will also help with the color issues people are having.

I find jacking up the heat after you add the cream helps. That way you get a steady boil which thickens the mix but doesn’t burn any settled pieces, it will also self mix essentially. When you do jack it up though make sure you watch it carefully.

I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong. Just as the mix starts to thicken, all of a sudden it foams up, becomes incredibly runny, and it’s almost as if the cream just disappears. I’m continually stirring like mad but to no avail. Any thoughts? If I take it off the heat before this point, no matter how much I stir it still separates.

I’m having great difficulties in making this recipe, and I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong. Just as the butter and cream mixture begins to thicken over a low heat as I continually stir it, all of a sudden it foams up and it’s almost as if the cream just disappears – it resembles runny melted butter. If I remove it off the heat just before it goes all runny again, no matter how much I stir, it separates. Has anyone else experienced this problem, and if so, what was the solution?

I can’t get this to turn out either. It turns out as a batch of oil with little brown crumbly little pieces. I strained out the pieces and added it to the cheesecake yogurt for a caramel flavored yogurt, which was good, but I’d love to be able to figure out how to get this to look like the picture. What brands of cream/butter do you use?

I’m going to try this with some canned coconut cream concentrate… Do you think it will turn out the same? And would it be a good idea to try grinding up the truvia into a fine powder ( coffee grinder method) before doing this, or do the granules make it do something in regards to mouthfeel? Thank you!

Hi, Don’t know if you still check these replies or not but have a question…
I can’t for the life of me to get this to turn the right colour, Everytime I try it just ends up a light cream colour. Holds together and all but tastes and looks more like a butter candy would.
I’ve tried cooking the butter longer until it was a darker golden colour but still ends up cream colour after adding the cream in… Any clue what I might be doing wrong?
*Also in Canada so our heavy cream is a 35% whipping cream could that be the problem?

Try reducing the cream and butter mixer a little longer after adding the cream. This will never be exactly like carmel since there is no sugar! I have only tried this recipe with 40% cream, so that is probably a factor.

It is equal parts of butter and cream. I used 3g of Truvia for the snack portion size of 12g butter & cream. Make sure you keep stiffing after you take it off the heat, until it starts to thicken and cool.

this is awesome! thank youfor sharing it! question tho…after i removed it from the heat and got part of it poured into molds for candy it started separating out. is there a reason it did this? something i should do differently next time?

Continue stirring it for a few minutes after taking it off the heat. It needs to start cooling and that will keep it from separating. Then you can pour it into the candy molds, and it will stay together. Let me know how it goes!

Hi, you can make this in a batch form but there is no way to calculate how much you loose when cooking it. However many batches you make (say 4) divide the final cooked recipe by 4 according to the total cooked weight. The recipe will weigh much less than it’s pre-cooked weight, but as long as you evenly divide it when it is finished, you will have the correct amount of fat and calories. Hope that helps!

Hi Dawn,
I am having trouble with it being separated – so it’s like a pile of brown bits and lots of liquid. Im thinking I’m cooking it too high, but it’s on as low as it goes. I hate my stupid electric stove!!! :o) Anyhow, is there anything else I might be doing wrong?

HI Julie,
I think you may be cooking the butter a little too long to start… It should be golden in color when you add the cream, not dark brown. Secondly, I think you are not cooking it long enough after adding the cream. The cream should come to a boil when first added. It will look like it is separated, but as you continue stirring and cooking it will eventually combine with the butter and start to reduce. If your cream does not boil, your stove it not hot enough. Let me know how it goes…